Colin Powell: Commencement Address at Howard University

Colin Powell’s Commencement Address at Howard University delivered on May 14, 1994, is among the most remembered speeches of an impressively influential African American in the late twentieth century. The speech helped keep the recently retired General Powell in the headlines at a time when many thought he might be the first black candidate for the presidency on a major party ticket. Like most commencement addresses, Powell’s remarks were designed to urge the listening graduates—and their friends and families—to aspire to greater philosophical and career goals. But because of his unusually popular public reputation and his potential presidential candidacy, Powell’s address had a much larger public audience. Today, this speech has been largely overshadowed by some of Powell’s remarks as secretary of state during the presidential administration of George W. Bush.

The Howard University commencement speech was given to several hundred graduates, their friends and families, and the faculty of the nation’s largest historically black university. Although the circumstances surrounding Powell’s appearance were controversial, his remarks were in the main well received by the assembled listeners and even more enthusiastically by the local and national press corps.